Guantanamo reviewed at Full Stop

We know all these things about language already. But as one pores over Guantanamo’s transcripts, what makes them so heart-hollowing is the way they show how in a sea of linguistic uncertainty, the locus of meaning, that original word, is more often than not established solely through force. To call a detainee an “enemy combatant” is a project loaded with bottomless ontological implications.